Elon Musk\u2019s pet project, the dumpster-driving Tesla Cybertruck, now tops that list.<\/p>\n
After a little over a year at market, sales of the 6,600-pound vehicle, priced from $82,000, are laughably below what Musk predicted. Its lousy reputation for quality\u2013with eight recalls in the past 13 months, the latest for\u00a0body panels\u00a0that fall off\u2013and polarizing look made it a\u00a0punchline\u00a0for\u00a0comedians. Unlike past auto flops that just looked ridiculous or sold badly, Musk\u2019s truck is also a focal point for global Tesla protests spurred by the billionaire\u2019s job-slashing DOGE role and MAGA politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s right up there with Edsel,\u201d said Eric Noble, president of consultancy CARLAB and a professor at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California (Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen, who styled Cybertruck for Musk, is a graduate of its famed transportation design program). \u201cIt\u2019s a huge swing and a huge miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do zero market research whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elon Musk, November 2019<\/p>\n
Judged solely on sales, Musk\u2019s Cybertruck is actually doing a lot worse than Edsel, a name that\u2019s become synonymous with a disastrous product misfire. Ford hoped to sell 200,000 Edsels a year when it hit the market in 1958, but managed just 63,000. Sales plunged in 1959 and the brand was dumped in 1960. Musk predicted that Cybertruck might see 250,000 annual sales. Tesla sold just under 40,000 in 2024, its first full year. There\u2019s no sign that volume is rising this year, with sales trending lower in January and February, according to Cox Automotive.And Tesla\u2019s overall sales are plummeting this year, with deliveries\u00a0tumbling 13%\u00a0in the first quarter to 337,000 units, well below consensus expectations of 408,000. The company did not break out Cybertruck sales, which is lumped in with the Model S and Model X, its priciest segment. But it\u2019s clear Cybertruck sales were hurt this quarter by the need to make recall-related fixes, Ben Kallo, an equity analyst for Baird, said in a research note. Tesla didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The quarterly slowdown underscores the fact that when it comes to the Cybertruck, results are nowhere near the billionaire entrepreneur\u2019s carnival barker claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemand is off the charts,\u201d he crowed during a results call in November 2023, just before the first units started shipping to customers. \u201cWe have over 1 million people who have reserved the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
In anticipation of high sales, Tesla even modified its Austin Gigafactory so it could produce up to 250,000 Cybertrucks a year, capacity investments that aren\u2019t likely to be recouped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t just say they wanted to sell a lot. They capacitized to sell a lot,\u201d said industry researcher Glenn Mercer, who leads Cleveland-based advisory firm GM Automotive. But the assumption of massive demand has proven foolhardy. And it failed to account for self-inflicted wounds that further stymied sales. Turns out the elephantine Cybertruck is either\u00a0too large or non-compliant with some countries\u2019 pedestrian safety rules, so there\u2019s little opportunity to boost sales with exports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t sold a lot and it\u2019s unlikely in this case that overseas markets can save them, even China that\u2019s been huge for Tesla cars,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cIt\u2019s really just for this market.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/imageio.forbes.com\/specials-images\/imageserve\/67edb57c4b69aa024b705a5d\/Elon-Musk-Protest-at-Tesla-Showroom\/1960x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=1440\"\/)
<\/p>\n
A Cybertruck drives by protesters at the Tesla Showroom in Somerset, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n
More than a decade before Cybertruck went into production, Musk hinted that Tesla would eventually do some kind of electric pickup. When he unveiled his design to the world for the first time, Musk was clear that he did not want a conventional aesthetic or even something that played with pickup looks a bit but was still familiar, the approach Rivian took with its R1T pickup.<\/p>\n
\u201cPickup trucks have been the same for 100 years,\u201d and Cybertruck \u201cdoesn\u2019t look like anything else,\u201d said Musk, who earlier that month had proudly told an audience at a\u00a0conference for space entrepreneurs, \u201cI do zero market research whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
That would be an apt tagline for Musk\u2019s preposterous pickup. \u201cThe spectacular failure of Cybertruck was a failure of empathy,\u201d said CARLAB\u2019s Noble, whose company helps carmakers develop products based on consumer research. \u201cEverything from the bed configuration to the cab configuration to its performance and all sorts of pickup truck duty-cycle issues, it\u2019s just not empathetic to a pickup truck buyer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cybertruck\u2019s distinctive look resulted from two key forces, said a person familiar with the development process, who asked not to be identified because the information isn\u2019t public. One was Musk\u2019s passion for sci-fi designs. The other was an early decision to create a vehicle that didn\u2019t need to be painted.<\/p>\n
If Tesla opted not to paint the trucks, it wouldn\u2019t need to install a new $200 million paintshop, a big potential cost savings. And it wouldn\u2019t have to worry about EPA scrutiny from the harmful emissions and runoff those facilities often produce.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThey drooled over not spending $200 million on a paint shop, but probably spent that much trying to get the stainless steel to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glenn Mercer
Ultimately, Musk opted for a stainless steel exterior, the same choice Delorean made for his ill-fated sports car four decades earlier. But because Musk isn\u2019t a production engineer, he may not have fully appreciated the challenges it presents versus aluminum or composite materials, the person said. Aside from the fact that stainless steel shows handprints\u2013a common gripe about kitchen appliances\u2013it\u2019s hard to bend and likes to snap back to its original shape, one of the reasons there have been problems with Cybertruck body panels.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is where I think they misconstrued the tradeoff,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cThey drooled over not spending $200 million on a paint shop, but probably spent that much trying to get the stainless steel to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Developing Cybertruck, including tooling expenses to make it in Austin, probably cost Tesla about $900 million, he estimated. And unlike the company\u2019s other vehicles, like the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, it doesn\u2019t appear that the Cybertruck shares any development and production costs with other Tesla products.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it have a demonstrated technology that could be used elsewhere by the company? That is not the case,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cCan the manufacturing plant make all this other stuff based on investments for Cybertruck? No, it can\u2019t. An unpainted stainless steel vehicle just doesn\u2019t have that much broad traction.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were bad omens from the start. At the\u00a0vehicle\u2019s unveiling in November 2019\u00a0to raucous Tesla fans in Los Angeles, a demonstration of Cybertruck\u2019s supposedly shatter-proof \u201carmor\u201d glass by Musk and von Holzhausen went hilariously awry when a steel ball hurled at the vehicle busted the driver-side window twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my fucking God,\u201d a\u00a0chagrined Musk\u00a0said. \u201cWe\u2019ll fix it in post.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there was the price. Musk had promised that a base version of the vehicle with 250 miles of range would start at $39,900. He was off by about half.<\/p>\n
Currently, the base version of the truck, ostensibly priced from $72,490, costs $82,235 before a $7,500 federal tax credit that President Trump has vowed to eliminate. It claims up to 325 miles of range\u2013if you don\u2019t tow anything or drive too fast. The top-end \u201cCyberbeast\u201d version is $105,735 and too pricey for the credit.<\/p>\n
Though Tesla isn\u2019t making the entry-level version Musk promised in 2019, plunging resale values have made used Cybertrucks quite a bit more affordable, according to\u00a0auto news site\u00a0Jalopnik<\/em>. You can get a lightly used one for less than $70,000, assuming you\u2019re comfortable with the\u00a0implied risk of vandalism. And prices could go lower still, exacerbated by about $200 million of unsold inventory the company is sitting on, Tesla fansite\u00a0Electrek said this week.<\/p>\n
In the end, Musk cursed the Cybertruck by ignoring the reasons people buy pickup trucks \u2014 to haul things around and drive well in offroad conditions. The vehicle isn\u2019t competent at either of those things, as has been endlessly documented in scathing reviews, a steady stream of \u201cCybertruck fail\u201d videos\u00a0and a 280,000-member \u201cCyberStuck\u201d Subreddit. Adding to the embarrassment is a developing sub-genre of videos showing stymied Cybertrucks being towed to safety by Ford F-150s or GM Silverados.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s anything the Detroit Three know how to do, it\u2019s full-size pickup trucks with extremely loyal buyers,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cHe launched Cybertruck into the teeth of the hardest segment to crack.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk\u2019s polygonal pickup is a polarizing sales flop that\u2019s missed the billionaire\u2019s volume goal by a staggering 84%. And there\u2019s no sign that things are improving. The list of … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4415,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4412\/revisions\/4415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightflowmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}